Normandie's Funnels

[Catherine Booton]

I've read a lot that the funnels on the Normandie were divided down the side of the ship which allowed the creation of those massive rooms. I was wondering if anyone knew any more about the design of these? Was this design unique to the Normandie and were there any special construction techniques needed to create rooms that big? Sorry for all the questions! Any info would be great. Thanks.

 

[Joe Russo]

The split intakes were actually used before on the German big 3, I believe the Vaterland (later Leviathan) and Bismark (later Majestic) had it. I don't think that the older Imperator (later Berengaria) had it.
Now if these were the first ships to use this, I don't know.
I'm not sure about the structuring, but I've read that the huge rooms pretty much made her a chimney when she burned. I believe this is why the SS. United States only had small compartmentalized rooms when they designed her.

 

[Jim Kalafus]

>I've read a lot that the funnels on the Normandie were divided down the side of the ship which allowed the creation of those massive rooms.

They were not divided to run along the SIDE of the ship They rose as single unit, divided below the passenger decks, and then arched over the public rooms on the Promenade Deck to join again as a single unit. They essentially divided the interior into thirds~ for instance the outer third on the port side was cabins, the inner third was the dining room, and the starboard side outboard third more cabins.

The effect achieved was dubious, at best. Because of the funnel uptakes, the dining room was exceptionally long but also exceptionally narrow and exceptionally crowded. It looked massive in publicity photos, but when people were thrown into the mix the corridor-like qualities of the room become painfully apparent. So, one has a room that looks great in photos but which must have been unpleasant to eat in ~ check out the table placement in the Isodeckplans. The fact that the room was reconfigured in 1936 and some of the lighting standards removed in favor of additional breathing room bears this out.

So, the divided uptakes were the ultimate manifestation of "function follows form" and were yer another reason that the Normandie was derided when new. A great deal of expense and effort was made to create an effect that only worked in still photographs, and which made the rooms less functionally pleasing than they might have been.

 

[Catherine Booton]

Ok that makes sense, that's really helpful. Thinking about it the room does look very crowded in the photos. Thanks!